"Villains are just potential heroes that never had friends to stop them to go evil." -Hikari Lux

Two weeks passed, and Shizuka seemed not wanting to talk to Kasai at all, even though it was my fault for letting her sleep with me, she blamed it on her.

I still kept trying every day to have chats with Kasai, in case if she ever decided to open up to me, but nothing. Kasai loved reading books too… well more like she loved it when I read books for her because she didn’t know how to read, so I also started teaching her all the things I’ve ever learned.

I still went to school and talked more and more to Sachi, so there was nothing much to speak at that point since we have mostly talked about everything there is to talk about in a normal conversation; although we did seem to get really along together it seemed to me that she was getting closer and closer daily, and Shizuka started noticing that too. I know that Shizuka has always had a crush on me but… I don’t know how to deal with it; I would like to be with her… and I was about to give in and go out with her but, Kasai appeared out of the blue, and Sachi arrived as a new student, they both seem to be lovely girls too so now I’m conflicted on who to end up with… this is precisely what I was trying to avoid. I need to stop focusing on who to choose, and start focusing on how to achieve my goal, and there will be plenty of room for love, later on, I should graduate first.

“Rukito…” I heard a sweet calming voice calling out for me.

“Wake up, Rukito.” I opened my eyes and saw Kasai standing next to my bed lightly shaking me.

“Hey, isn’t it the weekend? Let me rest for a while.” I was still half-asleep, so I didn’t really pay much attention to it but.

“Wait a second…” I quickly got up and said, “Kasai? Did you just say something?” She quickly stepped back and blushed.

“So, you did!” I was completely shocked, I barely heard her voice for a couple of seconds, but it was the most soothing voice I’ve ever heard in my life. I stood right in front of her and said, “Hey it’s been two weeks now, do you really still don’t feel like talking to me?” She suddenly looked down with an angered look and proceeded to take a piece of paper and a pen. She took the piece of paper and the pen, then wrote… ‘THERE IS A REASON WHY I CANT TALK’ her handwriting was horrible, but at least I understood it; it was similar to mine.

“What reason?” Then she wrote, ‘When I was 14 I was cursed by one of my parents as a punishment.’"

“What… are you serious?” I was starting to get mad at myself, I don’t know why. I felt like if I was there, I could have protected her. She nodded. “So, there is someone with an S.S that allows them to remove someone’s voice?” She nodded again. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?! We could have been figuring out on how to get your voice back a long time ago!” She got a startled by me yelling and then frowned while writing, ‘sorry. I probably deserved it.’ I sighed and asked,

“What did you do?” Then she wrote, ‘I don't want to talk about it.’ Understandable. I walked closer to her and hugged her. “You can hug me all you want when you feel down, ok? There is nothing wrong with showing affection or anything like that.” She slowly raised her arms and wrapped them around me squeezing me tight. Then, as we let go, I noticed that she was sad.

“Kasai, it’s fine. I’ll find a way to get your voice back ok? I promise.” She nodded. “I’ll go talk to Shizuka to see if she has ever heard of someone that has an S.S that can mute people.” She nodded again, then I left the room and entered Shizuka’s room, she was on her bed reading books like always.

“Hey, Shizuka.” I was sure that by now she would have let go of the hard feeling.

“Yes?” she looked at me with a neutral look.

“I need your help on something.”

“What is it?”

“You see, Ka-” Suddenly, I heard a knocking on the door.

“Come in!” Said Shizuka. My foster father opened the door and said,

“Rukito.”

“Yes?”

“There’s someone at the gate saying that they know you, I need you to come and confirm that it’s true.”

“Oh, sure. Sorry Shizuka, I’ll be right back.”

“Sure thing.” As my foster father and I were walking towards the camera control center, he wrapped his arm around me and said with a smug,

“Trying to make a move on lady Shizuka I see, huh? Took you long enough.” I didn’t expect him to say that, if anything I was more concerned about the fact that they wouldn’t like it at all if I did try to be with Shizuka, that’s one of the biggest reasons why I never really tried that much.

“W-what?! N-no it’s not that, I-”

“Hey, it’s fine Rukito, even Ayumi would encourage you to be with her, we both talked about how you seem to be a very nice boy who will be able to protect Shizuka and help her when she needs it, we did choose you for a reason after all.”

“Huh?”

“You see, we always have accepted to take care of children for a while until someone decides to adopt them, that’s what foster care is, but if we really like the child we take care of, we adopt them, and you are the first kid that got our attention.” I was happy hearing that they like me a lot, but I wasn’t happy about something…

“So that means that you both want to adopt me?”

“Yes, it would be delightful having your-”

“No please!”

“Huh?” I started blushing a bit and said,

“You see… in Greenterra it’s not allowed for two adoptive siblings to marry each other, right?”

“Ooohhh! Is that what’s going on?”

“W-well I wouldn’t want to lose the opportunity you know… when we get married someday, I know it won’t be a problem.”

“Sure thing Rukito, I’ll tell Ayumi about this, she will be delighted that you choose Shizuka.”

“W-Wait! I didn’t mean that I-”

“Here we are!”

“Huh?” I looked at the cameras and saw Sachi standing outside the gates waiting for me to open them.

“Do you know her?”

“That’s right! We have a project to do together!”

“Oh, alright.” He pressed a button, and the gate opened. I got out of the mansion, walked towards the front yard to welcome her.

“Good morning Sachi!” She was staring at the mansion like she has seen a ghost. Sachi was wearing a beautiful black kimono with short sleeves, she also had many shining bracelets of bright colors in both arms. She still had hair over her eyes to hide them from my family.

“Wow… I-I mean, good morning!”

“Yes, I know, I had your same reaction when I first arrived.”

“Um, Mind If I take pictures?”

“Pictures?” I looked down at her stomach area, and there was a camera hanging around her neck. “Oh! You joined the photography club?”

“Yes. I have a photography class; I started liking it, so I decided to also join the school club.”

“Then sure, go ahead and take all the pictures you want.” I did see her interested in photography, so it wasn’t that surprising after all.

She started taking a couple of pictures of me and the mansion while having a joyful smile on her face. We walked inside the mansion just to show her around, she took even more pictures and then asked,

“So, where’s your room?”

“Wow, didn’t expect you to be that quick.” She sucked her teeth then lightly pushed me while blushing.

“Hey! You know that’s not what I meant! I just want to start with the project.”

“Alright, alright.” Well… just because I don’t want to currently be in a serious relationship doesn’t mean I don’t like teasing girls! We both walked to my room, opened the door and there was Kasai on the ground with glass shattered all over the place, yet there was not a single scratch on her.

“Kasai?!” I rushed towards her.

“Is she okay? What happened?” Asked Sachi. Kasai pointed towards the top of the shelf. I instantly realized that she was trying to get my playing cards, but they were too high for her, so she had to climb on top of the table which had a huge mirror laid on top of it; she broke the mirror but somehow managed to dodge it.

I picked her up and said,

“Next time be more careful or ask for help.” She looked at Sachi with a confused face, then I said, “That’s my best friend from school, her name is Sachi.” Shortly afterward, I heard Sachi softly mumbling,

“Best friend? I-I’m your best friend already?”

“Heh, well uh… It’s not like I have many friends, after all, everyone thinks I’m weird because I have red hair and yellow eyes; but besides that, you have been an excellent friend so far, Sachi.”

“Thank you.” She said while smiling at me.

“But yes, this is Kasai, she is the new foster child of this family.”

“Wait, what? I thought she was your sister… twin sister at that!” I expected this to happen, but not this early; with Kasai looking like me, I expect many people to tell us this.

“Yeah… I thought so too; but we’re really not, even the DNA test came out negative.”

“Oh…” I looked at Kasai and saw her staring at Sachi’s bracelets.

“Hm? These? I always wear them when I’m down, they help me stay in a good mood.” Sachi said smiling joyfully at Kasai.

“Did someone give them to you?”

“Not really, I actually made them myself.”

“Really? That’s impressive! Where did you find all those pearls of different colors?” She giggled and said,

“That’s a secret.”

“Aww…” She suddenly turned serious and looked at me.

“Rukito, could we have a moment?”

“Uh- Sure! Kasai, you mind waiting outside a second?” I didn’t know if she wanted a moment to try to get closer to me or to talk about something serious, hopefully, the latter. Kasai nodded and went outside.

“What is it Sachi?” She sighed and said,

“I didn’t come here to do the project Rukito…”

“Well, that was pretty obvious.”

“R-really?”

“Nah just kidding.” I chuckled. She smiled and continued by saying,

“Jokes aside, I heard there’s this group called black tombstone going around and killing people who know magic.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yes, they have been killing both human and Cloud Elves.”

“Why?”

“Well, rumors go that-” Shizuka opened the door and interrupted Sachi while finishing off her sentence while Kasai walked in right behind her.

“Their boss lost its magic a long time ago, and now the only way to get it back is by draining other people’s magic flow into his body.”

“Shizuka?”

“I’ve heard this going around, I was going to tell mom and dad, but they already know.”

“Hello, Shizuka…” Said Sachi with a neutral face.

“Hey…” Shizuka got closer to us and asked Sachi, “What I want to know, is how do you know our family knows magic?”

“Well I didn’t, I just wanted to give you precaution.”

“Dammit… how could I fall for that?”

“Don’t worry Shizuka, I would have found out either way.”

“Huh?”

“You see, these bracelets that I’m wearing are special.” I looked at Sachi and asked,

“What do you mean?” I knew the bracelets were unique as soon as I saw them, but I didn’t give much attention to it.

“If the person wearing the bracelets has their magic flow unlocked, they shine; if not they don’t.”

“Huh? Let me see…” Shizuka walked towards Sachi and touched the bracelets while saying, “Wisdom-World” Suddenly a lot of ancient writing started appearing in front of Shizuka; some time ago, she explained that those writing are from an old alphabet called ‘Diagelus’ It was the language created for both devils and angels to understand each other. A page appeared in front of her floating.

“Just a page? Isn’t it supposed to be a book?” I asked.

“If it doesn’t have much information what’s the point of a book?”

“Right.” Shizuka’s M.S allows her to know everything about a place, object, race, or magic that she is currently touching; A book appears in front of her with all the information she needs to know, but in this case, it can also be just a page of notes.

The downside is that everything is written in diagelus, so she had to spend a year studying the language.

“Hmm… here it says that if the magic flow is unlocked in the body, then the bracelets react to that flow by lighting up; the stronger the magic is, the stronger the bracelet lights up. This item was created 212 years ago by the Greenterra military to see if anyone enlisting had the magic potential; there’s only 50 of these in the whole planet.”

“Wait, so that means…”

“Sachi has unlocked her magic flow.” I’ve always thought of Sachi as a normal girl… well without considering her eyes, but I would have never imagined that she managed to learn magic. I was really curious to ask a question about her magic, but in the end, I knew that she wouldn’t tell me, she is that type of person after all, but I was still curious about the fact on how she was able to unlock her magic flow.

“I’m guessing you won’t tell us how your singularity works?”

“No… sorry.” She said while looking down.

“It’s fine Sachi, not everyone is so opened about it. But how did you unlock it? I thought that you were living alone without family.”

“Well uh… remember that guild I was working for? Yeah well, the boss; besides being the school principal, he was also in the military ten years ago, so he knows how to unlock the magic.”

“Really? Well dam, you got fortunate.” I looked at Shizuka and noticed she had a doubtful face; she didn’t believe what Sachi was telling me.

“Why would someone just give you a lot of privileges out of nowhere? After all, we are prohibited from sharing the magic with other civilians.” Said Shizuka.

“Because everyone in the guild knows how to use magic, besides the maids and the bartender, and since I’m the bartender, I didn’t know magic. Now with this black tombstone group going around and killing people he was afraid that if these criminals went to the guild to kill everyone that has magic, then they probably would mistake us for someone that has the magic flow unlocked; and we didn’t know how to defend ourselves, so he unlocked our magic.”

“Hmm… ok.” She still didn’t seem convinced, but she recognized the reason as a valid one. I sighed and sat on the bed.

“So, we’re just going to hide from them? Is no one else trying to find where their hideout is and stop them?” Sachi turned to me and said,

“Actually, the same guild I’m talking about is trying to fight them off our streets, the rest is the king’s guardians’ job.”

“Oh yeah, what are the king’s guardians doing? I haven’t seen those four in ages.

Aren’t they humanity’s best warriors?” I asked. Shizuka turned towards me and said,

“Eh… that’s an arguable point, all I see in them are overrated brats.” Said Shizuka with an annoyed tone.

“The King went on a vacation for two years to the Cloud Elf continent just to show some appreciation of the peace treaty.” Said Sachi.

“TWO YEARS?! IS HE CRAZY?!” I said. Shizuka quickly added,

“I mean he did do some stupid crap while he has been the king.”

“He told everyone not to worry, the royal council can handle everything.”

“Not worry my ass! Look at our current situation! We have this group running around called ‘black tombstone’ killing everyone with magic just to satisfy the selfish boss; while the king is in the Cloud Elf continent screwing god knows how many Cloud Elves.” I looked around the room, and everyone was a bit shocked at how pissed I was.

“R-Rukito?” Said Shizuka.

“Oh- sorry… it’s just I always wanted to be a king when I was a kid and seeing someone living my dream but at the same time making stupid decisions pisses me off.” I sighed, took a minute to breathe and asked Sachi,

“Hey Sachi, does your magic have to do anything with healing?”

“Uhm… no, why?” I walked towards Kasai and rubbed her head.

“The thing is that Kasai lost her voice some time ago, and I’m trying to get her voice back by trying to find someone with healing magic to help her.”

“Oh, that’s why she was awfully quiet. Well for that you would need a Cloud Elf, they are the ones that have had Spiritual Singularities for millennia, we just understood how to unlock it 118 years ago, so we really don’t have many people that can use it at its max.”

“Oh, alright.” I looked at Kasai and said, “See? I promised I’ll manage to get your voice back.” She smiled at me and nodded. I turned back towards Sachi and Shizuka, then said,

“I’m going to the Cloud Elf continent with Kasai then, if any of you want to come, you’re more than welcome; if not, we will go alone.”

“What?!” Said Shizuka. “You can’t just leave school, and the house for god knows how many days!”

“This is… more important than a couple of weeks of school Shizuka, we’re talking about someone’s well-being. Plus, we could also search for the king and see what he is up to.”

“Yeah, like they would even let you a mile close to him.” Sachi looked towards me and said,

“Sorry Rukito, I can’t go; as much as I wish to help you, I got a rent to pay.”

“Oh, alright. Well, I guess you’re not coming to either Shizuka?” She sighed and looked down.

“I don’t know… give me a day to think about it.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t say yes!” I chuckled and said,

“Yeah, yeah, but you didn’t say no.”

“You know our parents are not going to allow us. We’re not 18 yet.”

“I know… but that doesn’t matter.” Shizuka sighed. I looked at Kasai, and she seemed a bit worried, maybe worried about the fact that I would get in trouble because of her. “Kasai, don’t feel guilty, I’m doing this not just for you but for the people who are fighting black tombstone; we will also go and find the king too ok? But first, we’re getting your voice back. We’ll be going after tomorrow.” She nodded. Briefly after, Sachi said,

“I know its rude asking because I didn’t tell you mine but… what is your singularity Rukito?”

“Mine?” I scoffed. “It’s pretty interesting, to say the least.”